大象传媒

This story added by Kate Arkell, with the permission of the author, Arnold Hornsby

I grew up in Derby and was a schoolboy there during WWII. One feature I haven't seen recorded is the smoke screens that were put in place by soldiers of the Pioneer Corps each night. I think that these, plus the fact that Derby was in a hollow, together with the normal blackout of all lights helped Derby escape the worst of enemy bombing. I now understand that there were also ghost towns which had 'accidental' flashes of light when enemy planes were overhead situated at points south of Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester to mislead the Nazi pilots. This was a good thing as Derby had Rolls Royce works, big Railway works (that made aeroplane bodies in the war), plus a number of heavy engineering and chemical works. Because of the blackout most churches held their evening services during the afternoon. One exception was the Queen's Hall, a big methodist church which managed to blackout their windows and continued to hold evening services. My father would attend with my brother and I. The church would be packed not only with its own people, but those, possibly of different denominations, from all over Derby. There would be uniformed members of the Forces there who, it was quite likely, would leave for their units after the service from the nearby Railway Station, plus nurses from the adjacent hospital. There was a very strong emotional feel about the service and the hymn singing from the methodist hymn book was very powerful. I recall as a boy seeing the streams of condensation running down the cold walls of the stairways as we left and being urged by my father not to touch the wet walls as we filed out into the black night.
It may be that although the smoke screen units were in place all the time, they were only lit on clear nights. However on our long walk home after the service we would often see the soldiers lighting them. The units were round, about five feet (1.5m) high. On the ground was a circular tub about two feel (0.6m) in diameter and about the same height. This was sealed at the top except where it entered the next section, a tube or chimney one foot (0.3m) in diameter and three feet (1m) tall. On the top of that was a detachable cowl (like a flattened dunce's hat). In the upper side of the tub was a filler hold into which the fuel was put. This, I believe, was a mixture of paraffin, diesel oil, and engine oil. I would hold my father back to watch the tubs being filled with this horrible liquid and then wait for the soldiers to light the units. They did this with what appeared to be a spark gun, a popular toy in those days - a revolver which fired sparks when the trigger was pulled. Once alight foul black smoke came out from under the cowl to form a dense cloud over Derby. My father would drag me away, reminding me that I had suffered from whooping cough in earlier years.
The smoke screen units were spaced every 30 yards (30m) or so along the street near the factories and would presumably hold enough fuel to allow them to burn until daybreak.

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